Apologies to all my friends and fellow 1up users, I’ve been sidelined for a several weeks with a particularly nasty kidney stone, so I apologise if I missed commenting on anyone’s blogs. More details below!

The Silent Hill HD Collection launched a few weeks ago, and by now most of us have heard the horror stories (If you’ll excuse the pun) about how terrible the port is. I’ve thus far been able to ignore the majority of the problems that plague this iteration of Silent Hill, mostly because I’m a long-time Silent Hill fan, and I’m willing to overlook some serious flaws in order to enjoy my favorite horror gaming series. I know I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail about how much I love Silent Hill, but replaying the games in HD for the first time in several years has reminded me of a few things I’ve always wanted to talk about.

Thing 1: James Sunderland is an amazing lead character.

One of the first things I’m reminded of as soon as I load up Silent Hill 2, is that James Sunderland still continues to be one of the most compelling leads in any medium, video game or otherwise. I have a very hard time coming up with another fictional character who has a similar journey into the heart of a depraved nightmare world, save for Jacob, the main character of Jacob’s Ladder. There are two schools of thought when it comes to the main character of Silent Hill 2. One is that James really truly is a horrible person, who killed his wife Mary because he couldn’t stand to be with her, and that he deserves his stay in Silent Hill. The other believes that James loved Mary so much that he didn’t want to see his wife suffer and ended her life mercifully. Personally, I tend to believe the latter, as during the game you can see James’ love blind him and confuse him momentarily. James says it himself in the start of the game: Dead people can’t write letters.

He misses his wife so much that he would leave everything behind and blindly charge into a town that has transformed itself into a living nightmare, in the hopes that his dead wife will somehow be found alive in the fog.

Something else that makes James so special to me is how well his character is developed. At the start of the game, James is just another sleep deprived denizen of Silent Hill, we don’t know much about him, even though we presume we know all we need to know. His early development is done by proxy, through interactions with the rest of the cast of the game. James’ true self seems to awaken only when he meets another person in town, at least in the early areas of the game. You can see the compassion he has for others quite easily during these scenes. But as you meet more and more people in Silent Hill, you start to get the sense that no one is here by accident. The second time you meet Angela and Eddie specifically, (I’m still convinced that Maria wasn’t real) your faith in James begins to waver. You learn even more about James from the shape and style of the monsters. I won’t go into any more specifics because the monsters in SH have been discussed to death, we should all be familiar with what each creature represents. It’s difficult in this day and age to not have game secrets ruined for you by the internet or friends, or whatever. I didn’t have any of the surprises ruined for me going into Silent Hill 2 blind all those years ago, and I’m very happy I didn’t. Being able to discover the story, inspiration for the monsters, and piecing together just what James did on your own is a feeling unlike any other.

Thing 2: Re-Recorded dialogue is a good thing!

When the Silent Hill HD collection was announced, word soon leaked that the voice-overs were being re-recorded. Quite a few fans were extremely vocal about how this was going to ruin the games, they claimed the games wouldn’t retain the original feel, and a lot of the emotion would be sapped out. I think that since Silent Hill is loved so much by a very protective fanbase, myself included, the initial response was understandable.

But surprise, surprise, the new voice-overs actually make the game better. It was one of those situations where you don’t know just how bad the voice acting was until you see how much better it can be. Going back and watching now, the interaction between James and Maria in the jail cell in SH2 is now a weighty, emotional scene that really pulls you in. When Maria does the Mary/Maria switch in the cell, she kind of snaps back to Maria, cocks her head at James, gives him that smile and says:

The re-recorded dialogue really reclaims this scene from the valley of camp. So much so, that the scene in question now becomes a highly effective plot point that serves to confuse players, rather than a huge blight of terrible dialogue that makes me cringe.

Nothing, however, can save the Silent Hill 3 scene in which they discuss playing god. That scene is just badly written.

Thing 3: Akira Yamaoka is a golden god.

I’ve touched on Akira Yamaoka in previous blog posts, but I will just reiterate my point. No one else can make music and sound effects that carry such emotional weight and power, and play such a big part in the game itself. Every scene in Silent Hill 2 and 3 is scored perfectly, bringing just the right amount of tension or sadness. In the later iterations of the series, from Silent Hill 4 onwards, Yamaoka’s music was the only thing that kept me playing. Regardless of game quality, I always know his music will be spot on, providing that atmosphere I love.

Thing 4: As much as I love the sexy nurses in Silent Hill 2, I really wish they never existed.

Over time, the sexy nurses have kind of become synonymous with the Silent Hill universe, and less of an extension of James’ story. I would imagine marketing meetings go something like this:

Thing 5: Silent Hill 3 is a much better game than most people realize.

I think there’s a few things wrong with Silent Hill 3, but not nearly enough to justify the hat it recieves. It just had the bad fortune of coming out after Silent Hill 2. If SH 3 would have been the next game in the series instead of 2, I think the reviews would have been a lot more favorable.

Thing 6: Going back to Silent Hill gave me a kidney stone, and in doing so, made me face my deepest fears.

As I alluded to above, I’ve been completely fucking destroyed by a very large kidney stone.

I shit you not, the symptoms literally started a day after I picked up the game and fired it up in my system. I don’t know how, but I swear to you, this game game me a kidney stone. So, this was my second kidney stone. I lived a really unhealthy lifestyle for several years, but managed to turn things around about 3 years ago. For years, I was in and out of hospitals, diagnosed with some crazy conditions, wildly fluctuating blood pressure, etc. All this time spent in and out of hospitals, and somewhere along the road I developed a deep-seated fear of hospitals. I kept having horrible dreams where I would wake up, strapped to a gurney, being lorded over by doctors with masks that obscure their faces like the intro to Silent Hill: Homecoming. Or maybe that episode of the Twilight Zone where everyone has a pig face except the hot chick. The hospital becomes some sick antithesis of health, the walls rot and crack, there’s dirt and broken glass everywhere AND I CAN’T GET OUT OH GOD WHY CAN’T I GET OUT

Keep in mind, these are some seriously irrational fears.

These nightmares don’t really happen unless I have to stay overnight in the hospital. So I get this most recent kidney stone, and the doctors tell me it’s too big to pass and it has to be broken up by some crazy ray gun technology (What?) and I’m going to have to stay for at least a few days.

Well shit. I’m gonna need a flashlight.

I really wish I could’ve gotten this on camera for you guys. I somehow talked myself into directly facing my fears, which involved walking down the dark hallway at 2am, I.V. cart trailing behind me, flashlight at the ready. (Please keep in mind I’m doing this with one of those exposed ass hospital gowns, so I can feel every breeze) Long story short, I ended up getting really really lost in the hospital, and just ended up scaring myself badly when the nurses finally found me.

“Sir? Are you OK?”

Yeah, I’ll be okay when the monsters stop making scratchy sounds and I can get some sleep in this broom closet.

Comments (7)

Silent Hill

Is still one of my favorite series out there, but I have yet to get either the HD collection or that new one Downpour. But that's mainly due to finances rather than the relatively bad reviews. I've found something to like about all of the Silent Hill games, in fact I think I'm one of the few people out there who actually liked Shattered Memories. It definitely wasn't the best Silent Hill game, not even close, but there were enough different and creepy things in it to make me love it more than hate it.

Awesome timing.

I wish I had something like that. Whenever I have the opportunity to face my fears, it usually involves a great opportunity to unnecessarily hurt people purely for the sake of revenge, and then remorse and shame for life, and so on..

Welcome back man!

Silent Hill is the series that made me hate hospitals. The problem is we're all wary of hospitals to begin with but SH amplifies that that to the 3rd power!

For me there's also a weird contradiction in hospitals too. Aka, though they stand for saving lives there are many deaths in hospitals. Doctors and nurses "should" care but they often carry through their routines with detached apathy.

Actually, some hospitals do in fact have "better auras" and "more committed staff" than others but the closest one here has went through periods of being a sad joke.

Luke

For all my bitching about hospitals we got it so good today as opposed to even 50 years ago. There have been many medical break-thrus and I'm grateful to live "now" when something ails me as opposed to the dark ages. (In which the cure would be either leeches or drilling a hole in my head. lol.)